The Excessive Wondering of Shieva Kleinschmidt

September 22, 2006

When at rest I tend to stay at rest, unless an outside force acts upon me. Unfortunately, when not at rest I tend to return to a state of rest, unless an outside force keeps me from doing so.

I’ve been looking for ways to counteract this so that I can get more studying done. Here’s my latest idea: I’ll announce a plan for studying, then post about it if I get behind schedule. Good? Since I’m currently trying to learn some Linguistics, I’ll plan this: I'll read 100 pages of Linguistics each week (let’s say, due at the end of each Sunday) until the end of spring semester. (Feel free to contact me with comments!)

Some rules for the game: I’m allowed to read ahead, to store up pages that I can use later. And I get to take three weeks off over winter break while I’m teaching my Intro Philosophy class, but that's the only break I get. Reading assigned in class counts, but weblogs don’t (unless they’re assigned, I guess). And . . . it starts now. Wish me luck!

September 21, 2006

I’ve been busy lately with my second fall term at Rutgers in full swing. And my, is it turning out to be exciting! Among the overdetermining causes, this term I’m taking two of my classes from the RU Linguistics department: Syntax 1 with Jane Grimshaw, and Semantics 1 with Roger Schwarzschild. And . . . I’m enjoying both immensely. Linguistics is fantastic!!

Because of my lack of background in this subject, I’m having to rush to catch up with the classes I’m in. So posting will continue to be very light, unless I post some of my Linguistics-related questions. But I’ll also post updates on the Mereology, Topology and Location conference and the Rutgers Religion conference, and perhaps also some questions about teaching as I prepare to teach my first class this winter.

August 12, 2006

Also, the website for the Rutgers Religion conference is up. Several people have volunteered to comment on papers at the conference, but I still have some spots left. So send me an email if you're interested in commenting!

August 10, 2006

As I'm writing this, I’m at the SeaTac airport waiting through a 10-hour delay for my flight to Ketchikan. And I don’t mind. I feel bad for the people who are inconvenienced by this mess, but I also like how the events of the day are causing people to open up to each other, strike up conversations with complete strangers, and have fun by seeing just how much good they can make out of the situation. I’ve been dashing about taking photos with my cell phone, and I’ll make a pretty collage of the chaos when I find the time.

For now, though, I’ll post different pictures: my photos from the 2006 BSPC. I have far fewer photos from this conference than I did from Mayhem (which required 6 web pages to post them), but I don’t mind: the better to post forthwith, my dear!

As the pictures reflect, the conference was fantastically fun! Here are a few of the highlights:

For me, the fun started before the BSPC did. I arrived in Bellingham over a week early (on July 22nd) to visit with the WWU profs. And I’m glad I gave myself some extra time: I was so glad to be back and to get to talk (and, in a couple cases, occasionally sing) with the profs on a regular basis again, even if just for a few weeks . . . Also, it was exciting to see some of the other people around Bellingham too. For instance, I was delighted to get to spend some time with Dan and Frances Howard-Snyder’s 6-year-old twin boys, Peter and William. I hadn’t seen them for almost a year, and so was a bit taken aback at how much they’d grown (they were three when I first met them).

I also got to see some people I didn’t expect to. For instance, a couple days before the conference, Ned Markosian, Hud Hudson and I headed to Fairhaven to have lunch with Kathrin Koslicki. Professor Koslicki was passing through Bellingham on her way to Alaska, where she’s currently travelling on her motorcycle and camping in various parts of the state. As if that’s not cool enough: she also just finished a book manuscript titled The Structure of Objects!

I also got to see Brett Hackett and Anne Greenfield, two friends from undergrad at WWU. They’ve been in Shanghai for the last year, teaching English to school children there (you can read about their experiences on their weblog). It was especially fun to be around them this time, because they were still adjusting to US culture after having acclimated to China, and they pointed out a lot of little things that surprised them about life here. Selfishly, I’m glad they’re back in the US -- it’ll be easier to visit them! They’re moving to Colorado this fall: Brett is starting Philosophy grad school at the University of Colorado at Boulder, and Anne will be studying for her PhD in English in Denver.

There were a lot of WWU alumni at the BSPC, or around right before it. Kris McDaniel, Ryan Wasserman, Joshua Spencer, Neal Tognazzini, Christian Lee and I were all participating in the conference, and Brett, Anne, Ken and John were all in Bellingham ‘round BSPC time. And I got to see Bree Spencer again as well (I hadn’t seen her since the last BSPC). She’s doing some incredible stuff: she’ll be travelling to Ghana this fall, and is planning on living there for 3 to 6 months to help with humanitarian aid there. Then she plans to go to school to study human rights, and devote the rest of her life to making the world a better place. Maximally cool -- I’m especially excited because I suspect, from what I know about her values and strengths, that she will both be very good at it, and find it fulfilling.

I also hung out a bit with some non-WWU-affiliated BSPCers before the conference: Saturday July 30th, I met up with Karen Bennett, Brad Skow, Sarah Moss and Andy Egan for a 5 mile run in Seattle. It was one of the SeaFair events, and there were a lot of people there. In fact, that was part of the fun - for a significant chunk of the race, there were people lining the streets waiting for the parade that was to follow the runners. And a bunch of kiddos were standing in the road with their hands held out for high-fives (or something relevantly similar?) from us as we went past. They were impossible to resist -- especially some of the littlest ones, who looked slightly bewildered by the whole state of affairs. It was the first race I’ve ever been in (Anne, that Halloween dash doesn’t count -- we were trick-or-treating as we went!), and I enjoyed it very much. Of course, I was the slowest of the Philosophers, and almost the slowest simpliciter. (In fact, I was going so slowly that what I was doing doesn’t actually count as running!) But somehow, I’m not too worried. And, happily, there’s talk of this run becoming a regular part of the BSPC, so I can hope to be at least slightly faster in the future! I’m taking, uh, steps toward that already . . .

The conference itself was a blur of philosophy papers, philosophy discussions, and very little sleep. I had the pleasure of hearing about a variety of fascinating topics from many of the conference participants. A non-exhaustive list: contingent composition, general relativity, gunky time, justification, locations, many-one identity, Modality, necessary existence, perception, Philosophy of Mathematics, Philosophy of Mind, quantifier variance, simplicity, testimony, two-dimensional semantics, and vagueness. Needless to say . . . :)

Of course, nothing is perfect: there was a bit of a scandal. I’ll leavethedetailsforyoutodecipherfromthephotos. (There’s also the unfortunate fact that the ladybug was eventually taken from me, because I pet it so much that its spots rubbed off. My reaction to the stuffed animal makes me think that I need a dog. It also makes me think that I probably shouldn’t get a dog.)

As you can imagine, it was hard to resist staying out with the philosophers (especially when inanimate insects were involved). And . . . I didn’t resist very well: I always ended up staying out in spite of resisting. So by the end of the conference I was beginning to notice some negative effects of failing to get enough sleep. It was especially bad on Wednesday, since I’d gotten only two hours of sleep the night before. By dinnertime that night, I was exhausted. But I was also lucky: I went to dinner with MarcMoffett, John Bengson, Joshua Spencer and Christian Lee. And we talked about Modality the whole time. They said lots of exciting stuff, raising challenging points that I have absolutely no idea how to answer. And by the time we left the restaurant, I’d completely forgotten about sleep. That dinner ties for being my favourite part of the conference, and I am really, really grateful to them for it!!

I’m also grateful to Michael Glanzberg, for acts of supererogation the next afternoon. For recreation day, a group of about 18 of us went to Lopez island to go kayaking and look at wildlife and such. Professor Glanzberg shared a kayak with me, and told me about truth-value gaps (quick summary: there are none), the liar paradox, and logical pluralism, among other things. But that wasn’t the extent of his kindness: apparently I have trouble thinking and paddling at the same time, because often when there was something I didn’t understand, I put down the paddle while I thought. And there was a lot I didn’t understand. After the trip several other kayakers were mentioning blistered hands and sore shoulders, and I felt very guilty when I couldn’t relate in the least. But still . . . it was really fun! So I feel more grateful than guilty (though I still feel a significant amount of guilt). But also, I learned some stuff. For instance, I can (truthfully) say: the dinner on Lopez island that night was so good, kool-aid isn’t tasty!

The next day I drew my conference adventures to a close by hanging out with Joshua Brown, who told me about existence, conditionals, arguments for theism, constitution puzzles . . . the list continues. We also met up with professor Egan and chatted about Mereology, delusion, and ethical uncertainty. It was, I think, the perfect way to recover from the BSPC!

There was also some interesting non-Philosophy that day. In choosing where to go for lunch, J. D. K. was inclined toward getting sushi. And, since he’d spent over an hour the day before telling me about quantum jumps (which, while maybe not quite as nifty a topic as, say, the Löwenheim-Skolem Theorem, at least comes pretty close), I complied. So for the first time, I ate raw flesh. And . . . I liked it. Since then, I’ve been surprised. Sometimes it's expressed with this thought: “Isn’t it odd that, especially as a pescetarian, I’d never tried this popular way to eat fish?” Then the reasonable part of me kicks in and replies: “No, because it’s raw flesh.” Then I continue being surprised, though it’s surprise at my having liked it. (At least, until I forget the reasonable bit and the whole thing repeats.)

For the next week, I spent my time catching up on sleep, visiting with the WWU profs, doing a bit of work, hanging out at Lake Padden, and staying far, far away from bookstores. And the night before I left Bellingham I got to hang out with Karen Bennett, Andy Egan, Hud Hudson, Dan Howard-Snyder, Ned Markosian, Ryan Wasserman and . . . Kenny Easwarman! (He was passing through Bellingham heading north.) I was happy to get to see him again, and of course, I wasn’t entirely devastated when he shared his thoughts on the Indifference Principle and on non-classical logics (among other things). There was also a lot of non-Philosophy that our group discussed; for instance, we talked about teaching Philosophy. And about saving Philosophers from sharks. And . . .

So concluded my time in Bellingham. And, reaching the end of this post, I’m also reaching the end of my time at the airport (at least for today). Wish me luck getting home!

July 20, 2006

A cool fact I learned recently: I'm currently attending a university where Milton Friedman was educated! Why wasn't I told when I was a prospective?! (OK, I don't expect to have been told that fact when I was a prospective -- but there's a nearby, contextually salient fact . . .)

Anyway, my days are currently filled with packing stuff up (I have to move again, since the building I'm living in is being sold) and finishing some last-minute errands. As soon as I'm done, I'll be hopping on a plane to the West coast, to hang out with the WWU profs (as early as this weekend, I'm hoping!). Wish me luck getting over there soon!

July 09, 2006

Well, this is new. I'm used to having difficulty getting to sleep -- and with all the ideas in the air here and at WWU, that's no wonder. But I've always resisted insomnia before. I know it's not healthy to go without sleep for large amounts of time.

Lately, though, I've become weak-willed. I suspect it's due to the combination of seeing my summer slip by faster than I expected (there's a B-theoretic translation around here somewhere . . .) and knowing that making my day longer is as easy as keeping myself conscious and in front of the laptop. So I've begun to sleep less frequently than I should (though, in my defence, the infrequency is partly counterbalanced by extended duration).

This has got to be common, right? Summer comes, and the daily requirements that keep us students on a semi-normal schedule disappear. And then it's only natural to take advantage of the large expanses of interruption-free time.

Still, I am feeling a bit more productive. And I can also look forward to a return to semi-normalcy soon: At the end of the month I'll be going to the BSPC, where though I'll go without much sleep for about a week, it'll be justified lack of sleep. And then I'm off to Alaska for most of August, where everything is wholesome and lovely and good.

I suspect I won't be updating here much for the next couple months, so happy summer, everyone!

July 01, 2006

In the June 13th post, I said that the Rutgers Philosophy of Religion conference will take place next January. I meant this January. But this January is next January, isn't it? Did I succeed in conveying what I wanted (without relying on a lot of charitable interpretation, or extra information)?

It's confusing to me, because people say, e.g., 'this Sunday' to refer to the temporally closest Sunday in the future direction, and 'next Sunday' to refer to the one after that. I can understand using, e.g., 'this week' to refer to the week in progress at the time of the utterance, and 'next week' to refer to the one that follows it, but what's up with the Sunday-talk? Am I just being misled by some anomalous data?

June 27, 2006

The photos from Mayhem are up. Photos from the first few days are here, and photos from the last couple days are here. I've also posted some pictures from other adventures this year, including the trip to Notre Dame and two trips to WWU.

There were a lot of Mayhem photos (I got a little camera-happy, and also passed along the camera to others), and I'm a little worried that the web pages won't load properly. If they don't, let me know and I'll divide the photos up among more than just two web pages.

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Update:

I've changed the web pages, so there are now 6 pages of Mayhem photos: 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6. I've also separated out the Notre Dame photos from the other photos from this year's adventures. Hopefully this'll avoid browsers crashing, without my having to resize each of the photos. (Thanks Aidan and Sam!!!)

June 26, 2006

The Economist tells me that the United Nations has "an official committee of geographers" to discourage the use of exonyms (the UN says an exonym is a "geographical name in a language, which is not spoken in the area in which the named object lies"). The Economist is right.

"In addition, their use is contrary to the UN's basic principles concerning one name for one object and thereby obstructs efforts to create international uniformity in the handling of names."

Well, having no more than one name per object certainly would've helped with Venus!

Considering the analogy between times and places, it seems to me that they're definitely on the right track with this. It's always bothered me, for instance, that when we refer to, e.g., the distant past, we do so with contemporary language. We should use the terms they used if we're going to refer to their time! Really, if we're going to refer to a spacetime region, we should restrict ourselves to the names for it used in that region. If there aren't any . . . well, the UN will figure something out!

June 25, 2006

Before my friends (especially those in the Boston area!) disown me, I should explain: I root for the Yankees because they are the underdogs.

They are, I’ve been told, the most highly paid baseball team, and they’ve dominated the World Series for much of its history. So people root against them on principle. When the Yankees win, even their fans seem to expect it; when they lose, it’s viewed as almost offensive (though, for many, still a welcome outcome). After all, how can a team lose when it has so much going for it? While I suspect diminishing returns aren't being properly taken into account, the fact that the Yankees are so widely viewed unsympathetically makes me feel bad for them. Poor Yankees!

This is kinda like when I eat a cookie, then wish I still had it. Sure, it’s gone because it’s in my stomach, and I’m the one who put it there. But that should make people feel more sorry for me, not less, because that very fact will make people extra unsympathetic, when I’m still suffering in the absence of a cookie to eat.

Anyway, mid-June I got to see my favourite team play. Aaron Exum kindly invited me along to see the Yankees play against the Cleveland Indians, in the house that Ruth built. It was the first baseball game I’d ever watched, and goodness, was I surprised.

One thing I didn’t expect was this: the fun of attending the game began before I even got to the stadium. Those who know me may be shocked to hear this, but I’m not maximally fond of sports. Why spend time watching other people run about? Why is so much money spent on something that seems so pointless? And what’s up with getting emotionally invested in who wins and loses?

On the way to the game, I began to realise it’s not as pointless as I’d thought. In Penn Station I saw people wandering around in blue t-shirts, and blue and white jerseys, with Yankees logos on them or numbers and names on the back (though at the time I wasn’t sure, I found out later that, in many cases at least, these were the names and numbers of Yankees players). They were excited and chatty, and I caught bits of sports-related conversations: “ . . . but the American League is so much cooler than . . .”, “ . . . a lot of the coaches he worked with are Cleveland . . .”. I didn’t understand most of what I was hearing, but I understood the enthusiasm and joviality carried with the words.

On the subway things got even better: one of many relevantly similar events occurring around me, I witnessed a couple in their 70’s and two teenagers chat throughout the duration of the commute. The teenagers were wearing Yankees-regalia, which prompted the couple to ask about their interest in the team. After discussing coaches, expected outcomes of the season, how often they attended games and their favourite teams, the conversation veered toward plans for the fall, facts about their families, descriptions of hometowns, etc. (I even participated in the conversation for a while, until my confusing the Mets with the Mariners drew such an icy response that I clammed up and simply listened.)

It was fantastic to see complete strangers interact like this -- especially here, where people are typically so closed off, sometimes to the point of being rude. Though surrounded by others in this crowded city, it can be hard to find an excuse to interact, an avenue through which to forge connections with the members of the multitude. Sports give us a way to open up, to share common sentiments and create new bonds. It’s so nifty, it’s like being on the West coast again! Yup, I’m a fan of sports now.

So, by the time I got to the game I already had a favourite team and an adoration for baseball. Add to that the extensive knowledge about it that I gained from Encarta during the train ride from NJ (as well as what I knew from having watched A League of Their Own and a couple minutes of a baseball game on TV at a barbeque a few summers ago), and I was ready.

As the game progressed, I discovered two things: (i) it’s hard for me to remember to root for one team in particular, and (ii) watching baseball is stressful! These are related: I kept rooting for whoever was at bat. It was embarrassing when the Cleveland team was batting, because I’d be glad when the batter would get on base (or get a home run), and sad when the ball would be caught. Then I’d remember the implications for the Yankees that a good outcome for the batter would have, and my reaction would reverse.

Also, though I now appreciate baseball for its effects on NYC subway patrons, I’m in absolutely no hurry to watch another game. It’s normal, apparently, for batters to strike out most of the time. But I felt so bad for the batter whenever I witnessed it, it was somewhat traumatic to see it happen again and again. It surprises me that people actually use watching sports as a way to relax!

Still, it wasn’t as distressful as I make it sound: this is because I missed much of the game, since Aaron was kind enough to talk Philosophy with me. A lot of it was even baseball-related: we discussed how one might take my desire that the Yankees win to be irrational. Suppose (contrary to fact) that my desire is for the Yankees to win all of their games, and that this desire is justified by the Yankees being the underdogs. Suppose also (and also contrary to fact, given my use of ‘underdogs’) that if the Yankees won all of their games, then they wouldn’t be the underdogs anymore and my desire would no longer be justified. Then my desire is justified only as long as it isn’t fulfilled, if it's even really justified to begin with. Parfit discusses desires like this, I think, in his Climbing The Mountain (I got the link from PEA Soup, where there's an ongoing discussion of the manuscript). Anyway, though I’m in no hurry to see batters strike out again, I’m more than happy to sit and discuss Philosophy during another baseball game!

“Oh! somewhere in this favored land the sun is shining bright; The band is playing somewhere, and somewhere hearts are light . . .” The Yankees lost the game that day, but that just makes them all the more endearing. Here’s hoping good things for them as the season goes on. Go Yankees!!